Accordion Technique

**Sun May 14, 2006 7:24 pm**

I'm a fairly recent convert to the accordion, being a long-time guiitarist, and having at some point come across an accordion,a nd one day picked it up.

I'm now somewhat adept with the accoridon, but I just can't get the unigue "James Fearnley" sound.

From listneing hard, and watching a fair bit of footage, I see that Mr. Fearnley does this three-note pattern type thing, where he will get a rhythm going with three notes (think Body of an American, the chorus of Thousands).
If any of you fine people out there (or indeed Mr. Fearnley hmself) can shed any light on this technique, or any others you know of, please feel free to contribute

Cheers.

**Mon May 15, 2006 12:53 am**

The three-note pattern you're talking about is normally just based around different triads and inversions I think. Theres a bunch of different ways they're used on different tracks, with just playing around with the three notes.

James could probably elaborate, but this is what I've picked up from listening. Nothing specific, but I'll just say that if we're using a simple C triad, C E G, the different patterns that I can pick up on would be a simple G E C repeated for something in either 3/4 or 6/8 (Sally Maclennane) and E C G C or G C E C repeated really quickly for something in 2/4 or 4/4 (Streams of Whiskey, Boys From the Country Hell). There are different ones and James plays around with them what seems kind of randomly, but it does sound awesome when done well.

I'm ok at it, but seem to suck a bit at keeping it constant when changing from bellows in/out and vice versa. So heres my question James, how in the fuck do you keep your playing so smooth? I'm also not too great with changing chords, but I guess that comes with practice.

**Mon May 15, 2006 1:26 pm**

I've just been trying to figure out what I do, what I've always done, from the very beginning, when Shane and Jem's instruction to me, their only one, in Shane's room in Kings Cross, when we first got together, was to play 'alpine', and it goes something like, in a 4/4, dividing each beat in the bar into four, and deciding which note of any given triad was going to be commonest (I mostly deal in triads - and weird to be able to say, one of the chiefest influences I was ever aware of, when I was playing piano as a teenager, was actually Rick Wakeman) and then play that on the 2 and the 4 of the divided 4/4 beat, like the C in a C triad, if I was going to play the chord of F next, or G if I was going to play the chord of G next, if you understand me. So, it would go ECGCECGCECGCECGCFCACFCACFCAC (going from the chord of C to the chord of F). In 6/8, it would be a matter of gecgecgecgecgecgecgecgec (transpose that to the key of A for Sally Maclennane), and then put triplets in between the G and the E and hitting the root note of C on the third quaver of each 6/8 pattern. Does this make any sense? It's early and I've got to make breakfast for the kids.

**Mon May 15, 2006 7:29 pm**

Thanks rockarocka, and exceptional thanks to Mr Fearnley, that does indeed help me out very much, so hopefully I'll be able to improve!

**Tue May 16, 2006 7:17 am**

::blink blink::

Man... I've got to get up to Dave's for some lessons.

**Fri May 26, 2006 11:17 pm**

http://squeezyboy.blogs.com/squeezytune ... es_vi.html

looks like you may have some competition in "circuit bent accordion"

http://squeezyboy.blogs.com/squeezytunes

**Sat May 27, 2006 4:54 am**

circuit bent accordion is fantastic. Jem for a time was driving around in his car with a trunk-load of vacuum-cleaners that he wanted to attach to something to make into a musical instrument. Just thought I'd mention that.

**Sat May 27, 2006 10:16 pm**

JamesFearnley wrote:circuit bent accordion is fantastic. Jem for a time was driving around in his car with a trunk-load of vacuum-cleaners that he wanted to attach to something to make into a musical instrument. Just thought I'd mention that.

Was this the time he was auditioning for Einstürzende Neubauten?

**Sun May 28, 2006 1:17 pm**

RoddyRuddy wrote:http://squeezyboy.blogs.com/squeezytunes/2006/03/early_pogues_vi.html

looks like you may have some competition in "circuit bent accordion"

http://squeezyboy.blogs.com/squeezytunes

Thanks for that!
Eminem & the Polka Band - Awesome :lol:

**Tue Jun 27, 2006 10:54 pm**

JamesFearnley wrote:I've just been trying to figure out what I do, what I've always done, from the very beginning, when Shane and Jem's instruction to me, their only one, in Shane's room in Kings Cross, when we first got together, was to play 'alpine', and it goes something like, in a 4/4, dividing each beat in the bar into four, and deciding which note of any given triad was going to be commonest (I mostly deal in triads - and weird to be able to say, one of the chiefest influences I was ever aware of, when I was playing piano as a teenager, was actually Rick Wakeman) and then play that on the 2 and the 4 of the divided 4/4 beat, like the C in a C triad, if I was going to play the chord of F next, or G if I was going to play the chord of G next, if you understand me. So, it would go ECGCECGCECGCECGCFCACFCACFCAC (going from the chord of C to the chord of F). In 6/8, it would be a matter of gecgecgecgecgecgecgecgec (transpose that to the key of A for Sally Maclennane), and then put triplets in between the G and the E and hitting the root note of C on the third quaver of each 6/8 pattern. Does this make any sense? It's early and I've got to make breakfast for the kids.

it made absolutly no sense at all to me but i enjoyed reading it.

**Wed Jun 28, 2006 3:51 am**

Made sense to me at the time.

**Wed Jun 28, 2006 4:37 am**

JamesFearnley wrote:Made sense to me at the time.

Don't worry, James. It makes sense just fine, and I don't even play the box. I theenk Dawsonn was (hopefully) just being 'playfully' dense... :wink:

**Wed Jun 28, 2006 4:27 pm**

James: Jem had something to do with Einstürzende Neubauten?

**Fri Jun 30, 2006 2:18 pm**

Not as far as I know. I didn't get that either, though it struck me as funny at the time.

**Thu Oct 19, 2006 9:24 pm**

I recently (VERY recently) started playing the accordian. I had some experience with the piano but other than that i dont have a clue. Ive been playing the guitar for a while and the banjo for a fair bit and am therefore used to doing two things at once. Picking and fretting is the equivilent of playing the keys and squeezing and im getting that, but how the hell do you do that AND get the buttons going. Is it just practice or is there some trick to it? Also, learning some pogues on guitar i noticed that a lot of songs are in C. Is that for the benefit of the accordian so theres no dealing with messy sharps, or is that coincidental?

Accordion Technique

Accordion Technique

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